120 The unexpected attack...

"So, how is my good sister doing?" Gerrard grinned, adding, "I have heard that you have led a battalion to win over two research posts. Thank you for your efforts on behalf of the federation."

Yet seemingly simple words of encouragement and goodwill didn't put a smile on her face. Lyla glared at him but didn't say anything.

However, Gerrard was long accustomed to her reactions and smiled, "This is Kevin. You remember old general Savage, right? He is his grandson."

The overgrown man of late teen years nodded as he returned Lyla's greetings. Lyla's eyes soon switched to Gerrard. She asked, "spill it. I don't think you have come here to introduce your friends. What do you want? I don't have much time."

"Why are you so busy? I've heard that they have already recovered all 57 research posts from those monsters. What extra work do you have?" The grin never left Gerrard's lips.

Yet, with each passing moment, Lyla's face got darker and darker, "they have posted me to research post # 5d, so I have to leave."

"Oh! You're so busy. Sorry for wasting your precious time." Realizing that Lyla was getting impatient, Kevin asked, "We want to know about Aiden."

"Huh?" Lyla, who was about to leave the chair, sat back down. She looked at Gerrard to confirm that it was the truth. Seeing Gerrard nodding, she asked, "What do you want to know?"

"Did he really kill your team captain?" Gerrard's face soon turned serious.

"Didn't you see the video?" Lyla knew that the original footage went viral on Planet Will: there is no way they didn't see it. However, she answered before they could ask the question, "I am not sure about it, but it was some kind of misunderstanding."

"Why?" Kevin was equally curious.

"The one who poisoned him was Elijah. And I am sure that if he wanted to, there was no way Elijah could have escaped. Yet he attacked Alex and killed him. I think it was some kind of misunderstanding."

"That is not important." Gerrard shook his head, "but to think he was able to kill someone a level higher than him... On top of that, he had mana poisoning."

"But how did he cure mana poisoning?" Kevin frowned, "Isn't it an incurable disease?"

"That is what makes him so special." Gerrard became excited as he explained, "My elder sister had said there's a small chance of survival via heart replacement."

"Heart replacement?" Kevin wasn't sure that he heard it right, "Wasn't he on Earth at that time? Then how?"

"Nobody knows why, but that is what made him so special. Maybe that's also why they brought him there," Gerrard turned to Lyla, asking, "Do you know what type of magic he can use?"

"At first, he used to use wind mana." Lyla paused for a moment before adding, "He said he could no longer use mana."

Gerrard nodded, "It also showed in the sensor, and in the top of that, he was wearing mana-suppressing handcuffs."

"But I don't think you'll be able to kill with a single touch without using mana," Kevin said, "that's the only plausible explanation."

"Uh?" Lyla frowned, "Who killed with a touch?"

"We don't know for sure whether he killed him, but the mage died after he touched Aiden."

"The Devil." Lyla sucked lungs full of cold air. As others turned to her for an explanation, she said, "There is a monster in the Nozama forest. It could kill anyone with a single touch."

"So?" Kevin couldn't relate Aiden to the monster.

"Aiden didn't die when it touched him. It even considered him a friend."

"I think he's using ice mana." As others stared at him with skeptical eyes, Gerrard shrugged his soldiers, "Mana scanning result of the body is similar to the ice trolls we have captured."

"There is nothing similar." Kevin frowned, "It wasn't even able to detect any mana inside of them."

"Yet, they can use mana. And ice mana at that." He looked at Kevin with all seriousness, continuing, "If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. That will also explain those pairs of ice wolves that massacred everything outside."

"But..." Kevin couldn't find the find words to refute, "He couldn't control those wolves while talking to others. That would mean that even those ice wolves had intelligence of their own. That's impossible."

"Why does it matter?" Gerrard grinned, "Think about it. If he could use ice mana, that would also explain how there was such a thick layer of ice outside the corridor."

'A human is using mana other than four main mana type. Impossible.' Lyla wanted to say. But looking at his brother, she couldn't.

Gerrard Amberdrop. A genius among all the jewels of the Amberdrop family. More than his enormous mana pool, what made him most dangerous is his innate skill.

Unlike Elijah's innate skill of foreseeing the future, Gerrard's ability was cruder. Lyla was sure that he couldn't even see the future. But armed with his intelligence, there were very few times when he was proven wrong.

"To kill a Level 4 mage captain..." Kevin sighed, "Whether he can use mana or not, he won't be a weak one."

"So, what do you think?" Gerrard asked Lyla all of a sudden.

"About what?" It naturally puzzled Lyla.

"Is a good guy?"

"I don't know." Lyla shook her head. "He had saved Owen. He saved all of us when he could have escaped alone. But..." as both pairs of eyes turned to her, she added, "he tried to kill on the very next moment he saved us. It's complicated."

"So..." Gerrard couldn't complete his sentence as the door flung opened. And three teenagers barged in without knocking.

"Lyla, We have to leave this place."

The silence engulfed the room. The haggard breathings of three guests, the only proof of their urgency, were resonating in the room.

"What are you talking about, Elijah?" Even if Lyla could guess the reason, it was too abrupt.

"I can't say it." Elijah shook her head, "But we have to escape now."

"You must be the one who can see the future, right?" Gerrard asked with a smile on his lips. Looking at his fiery red hair, Elijah realized he had some relation with Lyla.

"He is my..." Lyla paused for a moment before adding, "My brother, and this is Kevin. Gerrard is the chief of the hundred-man mage squad that came as reinforcement."

"It doesn't matter." If it was any other time, she wouldn't dare to say those words. Yet things are different right now. "WE HAVE TO LEAVE."

"How much?"

"At most, ten minutes." Elijah frowned, and she no longer urged her. She turned around and ran away without looking back. Asher followed her without hesitation.

Sara, on the other hand, stopped for a moment, looked at Lyla. In the end, she followed Elijah.

"Come." Lyla no longer dared to overlook her words. After all, without Elijah's innate skill, she would have died on Earth quite a few times. That was also why she decided to bet on Elijah rather than Aiden.

"She was the one who poisoned Aiden, wasn't she?" Gerrard asked as he and Kevin followed Lyla.

"It doesn't matter." Lyla didn't slow down as she ran through the almost empty road. "She gets the job done, and without her innate skill, we wouldn't have survived on Earth."

"What was she talking about? What's going to happen?"

"It doesn't matter what it is, she won't tell anybody. She thinks if she speaks about the specifics, the future will change, and she won't be able to foresee it anymore."

"But if she was talking about an attack from the monsters, wouldn't it be better to stay inside the walls?"

"I don't know. Nobody knows. All we can do is follow her." Lyla pointed to Elijah, who was arguing with the soldiers at the gate. Their barracks weren't that far away from one of the gates, so they soon got there.

The process of entering the city was meticulous, but getting out was a lot easier. However, the garrison still had to check the identification. And Elijah didn't even dare to waste that much time.

"Don't worry about them. They are with me." Gerrard scanned his badge as he spoke. All of his details showed on the screen as the soldiers jumped on their feet to show proper respect.

And if that wasn't enough, Kevin scanned his badge, too. The soldiers were quick to return the IDs to Elijah and others.

"Inform the headquarter to prepare..."

"NO!" Screamed Elijah. "Don't say it."

All of them in the vicinity turned to her because of a sudden shout. Gerrard frowned, but he continued, "Put the stronghold on level one... No, on level two alert. Prepare for any type of attack."

"Damn it." Elijah cursed again, then ran without looking back. Soon others followed her. Gerrard gave a few more instructions to soldiers, yet he still caught up with Elijah without any problems.

"If you want to run away, won't it have been faster if you had taken a transporter?" Elijah didn't reply to Gerrard and continued to run. With each step, it was becoming harder to breathe, but she didn't stop.

If it was anyone else, the soldiers wouldn't have cared. But Gerrard was the chief of the Reinforcement Company of the mages. They didn't dare to ignore his instructions.

And seeing him run away just from the stronghold had scared them. They rang the alarm immediately without even consulting the General's office.

Gerrard and others too can hear the high-frequency siren, but none of them were aware of the ensuing chaos. And then the ground shook.

Caught by surprise, they collapsed on the ground. Only Gerrard and Kevin kept on standing. They turned to look at the stronghold.

"Is it an earthquake?" It wasn't what Gerrard had expected. They were just a few hundred meters away. So they could see it.

There wasn't any fissure, but a bright light that slithered around the stronghold. Soon enough, the wind sped up, and it pushed all of them towards the stronghold.

"Lie down," Elijah screamed again, as she pushed her face into the snow without fearing the extreme cold.

Even if they didn't want to, Gerrard and Kevin couldn't help it. The sharp sound of the wind had already drowned the cries coming from the stronghold.

It wasn't just snow that the wind was carrying. The wind sent a few unlucky soldiers flying from the stronghold.

However, when they looked up, they found that those bodies were gathering in the shape of a ball above the stronghold. And it was growing bigger.

"What the hell is that?" The wind continued to grow stronger as the strong stench of blood continued to spread. Yet, none of these made any sense to Gerrard. He yelled, "Elijah? What the hell is happening here?"

"They're coming. They will kill us all." Her voice quivered, "We've to leave this planet. We've got to leave this planet, or we're going to die."